# Install exim with Homebrew Complete replacement for sendmail. Version 4.99.5 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-22. ## Install ```sh sudo av install brew:exim ``` Additional install commands: ### macOS - Homebrew (100%): ```sh brew install exim ``` Evidence: provider-native install command ## Package facts - **Package key:** brew:exim - **Package manager:** Homebrew - **Version:** 4.99.5 - **Source summary:** Complete replacement for sendmail - **Homepage:** - **Last updated:** 2026-07-22T16:04:55Z - **Generated:** 2026-08-03T00:40:33+00:00 ## Executables - exicyclog (alias) - exigrep (alias) - exim (alias) - exim-4.99.5-2 (alias) - exim_checkaccess (alias) - exim_ctl (alias) - exim_dbmbuild (alias) - exim_dumpdb (alias) - exim_fixdb (alias) - exim_id_update (alias) - exim_lock (alias) - exim_msgdate (alias) - exim_tidydb (alias) - eximstats (alias) - exinext (alias) - exipick (alias) - exiqgrep (alias) - exiqsumm (alias) - exiwhat (alias) ## Install behavior - Bottle: not available ## Freshness - Page generated: 2026-08-03 - Package-manager version: 4.99.5 ## Project history and usage Exim is a Unix-oriented mail transfer agent from the University of Cambridge, built for Internet-connected hosts and distributed under the GPL. It matters in package-manager culture because it is one of the long-lived sendmail replacements that administrators can install as a real MTA, a queueing mail system, and a command-line-compatible submission tool. ### Project history The current Exim specification describes Exim as an MTA for Unix and Unix-like hosts, designed around permanently connected Internet systems but configurable for intermittent links. Its own introduction explicitly places it in the Smail 3 lineage: many ideas and user interfaces came from Smail, while the Exim codebase was new and later grew beyond that initial model. Exim's documentation and distribution model are also part of its history. The project has long shipped a large reference specification, command-line man page, filter language documentation, upgrade notes, and per-release change logs. Source releases are published from exim.org, with signed tarballs and a separate public Git repository for people who want to track the source tree directly. ### Adoption history An Exim 3.20 overview from 2000 already described production use at sites handling hundreds of thousands of messages per day. The current documentation points to mailing lists for announcements, user support, development, and automated VCS messages, plus independent mirror sites, which reflects the classic Unix server-project adoption pattern: distro packages, local site policy, mailing-list support, and careful upgrades. Exim gained popularity as a sendmail-compatible replacement without requiring administrators to learn sendmail configuration. Its current manual says Exim adopts the Sendmail command-line interface so it can replace /usr/lib/sendmail or /usr/sbin/sendmail for message submission, while still producing Exim-specific output for administrative commands such as queue listings. ### How it is used Exim is used to receive, queue, route, and deliver mail over SMTP and related transports. Administrators care about its runtime configuration file, router and transport model, ACLs, queue runner, logs, and privileged execution model because those determine how mail policy, local delivery, forwarding, relaying, and security boundaries behave on a server. The package exposes a cluster of operational tools around the main exim binary, such as queue inspection, log grepping, database maintenance, and statistics commands. That shape is why it appears in package managers as a service-oriented package rather than a single-purpose CLI utility. ### Why package nerds care For package maintainers, Exim is a security-sensitive daemon with signed upstream releases, build-time paths, runtime privilege rules, and distro-specific defaults. The official manual notes that the runtime configuration filename is compiled in through CONFIGURE_FILE, which explains why packaged Exim builds often differ in configuration paths and default integration details. Exim is also historically interesting because major policy behavior changed over time. The official DNSBL HOWTO notes that Exim 4.00 moved incoming-mail policy checks to ACLs, making Exim 4 configuration materially different from Exim 3 for common anti-abuse setups. ### Timeline - 2000: Exim 3.20 overview documented production use at high-volume sites. - 4.00: Incoming mail policy checks moved to ACLs. - 4.73: Runtime configuration file permission rules were tightened. - 4.99.4: Current specification documents the modern Exim 4 series. ### Related projects - Smail 3 is the direct design predecessor named by Exim's own documentation. - Sendmail is the compatibility target for Exim's message-submission command-line interface. - DNSBL services, TLS libraries, DBM libraries, and content scanners are common integration points documented around Exim deployments. ### Sources - - - - - - ## Security Notes generalized runtime or code generation signal. - **Geiger risk:** yellow / medium - generalized runtime or code generation signal ## Combined YAML source View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/exim.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/exim.yml) ## Sources - Nucleus package database - Geiger risk classifier - curated package history - pkgdb category and tag curation